Comments on: Scientists Say Paralyzed Man Moves Physical Objects With His Mind

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:42:35 +0000

I guess I should have.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:05:57 +0000

Thanks, Alex!

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:05:17 +0000

I think we're definitely limited by design. Didn't you see X-Men III? 😉

By: Alex Chediak

Alex Chediak — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:37:28 +0000

A great post, Amy. Well-reasoned and persuasive.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:59:03 +0000

Sorry. I just keep thinking of other things to say. There's a question that has trouble me for some time. One of the major differences between material and immaterial things is that material things have location and immaterial things don't. Yet it seems like minds do in some sense have location. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to say, “Amy is in California,” or “Sam is in Texas.” I mean think about it. Why can your mind cause something in your brain, but not mine? Why is it that our minds only have causal interaction with our own brains and not somebody else's? (I suppose if we COULD have causal interaction with other people's brains, we'd be able to put thoughts into people's heads or read other people's minds. Hmm…)

Maybe it's just a mistake to say that immaterial things don't have location. Does a thing need to extend in space in order to have location? Points don't extend in space, but they still have location.

The whole thing just makes me wonder what exactly a spirit is. What kind of properties does it really have? What's it like to be a disembodied spirit?

By: David M

David M — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:54:35 +0000

I saw this post at the Pearcy Report and this thought occured to me:

Materialist: Matter (Brain) over Matter (Muscles & Nervous System) over Matter (Machine).

Hylomorphist: Mind (Soul) over Internal Matter (body) over external matter (machine)

On the surface it seems that in the materialist's schema there is no efficient cause between matter and matter while on the other there is.

This might be a long shot but these are my two pesos.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:44:40 +0000

Last year when I was writing about the mind/body problem, I raised what seemed to me to be an interesting question. The causal interaction between the mind and brain seems to go both ways. When we act willfully, our mental states cause brain states. But when we perceive, brain states cause mental states. The mind is able to perceive the physical world because we have organs that send signals to the brain, giving us physical sensations of touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell. If the mind only perceives these things through the “window” of the brain, then what's it like to be a disembodied spirit? Without physical organs and a brain, is it possible for a disembodied spirit to perceive the physical world at all? Another thing to make you go hmm… What do YOU think?

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:35:51 +0000

I just think that's really neat. I wrote a blog about this same subject last year. Intentional actions would be impossible if we didn't have an immaterial mind that has causal influence over the physical brain.

It makes you think, though. If minds can have causal interaction with brains, why couldn't they have causal interaction with other things? Everything is made up of the same protons, neutrons, and electrons that brains are made of. If minds can move particles in the brains, why couldn't they move particles outside the brain? Why couldn't we really move things beyond our bodies with our minds? I had a dream the other night that I could move things with my mind kinda like a jedi trying to fetch his light saber from a distance. It was neat.

I suppose there's two possible reasons. The mind/brain interactions are so subtle that they can't really be detected. The mind seems to initiate a causal chain that only becomes obvious once it's really going. Otherwise, there would be a measurable “violation” of the first law of thermodynamics. Energy would be added to the system. Instead, it seems to be more like an avalanche. The brain has potential chemical energy that's released from a subtle trigger. It's so subtle that it evades measurement.

I'm just speculating here, of course, but if the mind works in such a subtle way, then it really doesn't have much causal power. With such little causal power, you couldn't even pick up a grain of sand with your mind alone. That could be one reason we can't move things with our minds.

Another is that it could simply be part of God's design for the soul that it only interacts with the brain. The brain acts as a window through which the mind perceives and interacts with the physical world.

Things that make you go hmm…